Battle Report: the battle of Stevesbasementcrossing

[Adam]

Well we had a game using Piquet FoB rules and for once my luck held! So for any interested, here goes. I'll add a map tonight, but no pics this time- sorry- we will next!

An early lunge from my mate steve on my left wing saw him capture the first objective farmhouse. His infantry and his cavalry assaulted my crawling left wing whilst still in mixed columns of attack and march. I thought yet again, despite having got a decent deck and a good general, this was early doors!

Thankfully despite the attack column on the flank being pushed back, they held. I then got super lucky and was able to execute my 6 cards at the end of one turn which were good ones, followed by winning the next round and another 6 cards. These contained infantry fire and move cards to reorganise and attack his cavalry and infantry and drive them off and deploy my guns, this pretty well mullered that flank. All was looking pretty good as my main army had only to capture the left flank building, whose troops were now only supported by guns. The right side and centre had advanced to a defensive perimiter around a second objective. Only the church on the hill in the centre, overlooking the cross roads remained and we were about equal distances away.

Around this time or shortly after steve's army morale points were gone so it was the 'borrowed time' zone, but that wasn't to bother him- I had a fight in my hands. Steve then had his go and was able to draw right up to the church and deploy, he then executed a cunning outflank on my stupidly exposed right flank and destroyed my artillery over there (honestly i didn't see it). He was also able to regain controll of 2 of his infantry regiments and the cavalry running away on my left which I had now started to pull my troops away from believing the battle their won, and thus exposed my back to him, Given he still had an intact regiment in the building over there which I had assumed would be easy pickings, it now looked good for wiping the increasing grin from my face.

But madame fortune hadn't finished with me yet! A luckily drawn manouvre card saw my withdrawing left whip round and drive off the revived assault on the left, and be able to recover the situation a little on the right so as only to leave one regiment cruelly exposed to certain death- hey you can't save em all. Finally my guns hammered a few regiments out of the centre, and the right held firmly with reinforcements on the way and we called it a day.

Steve found out last night by reading the rules (I'm hopeless at rule systems and we had been doing it wrong) We have been modfying defence dice too, not just attack ones. So chances are it would have been closer still, both this time and on our last fight. But you live and learn!

We have found perhaps an element too far of unpredictability in the rules, with the potential for 12-20 cards beign played consecutively by one side?
Also We slowed lines a little to 6" move per segment, but still perhaps they lacked a little firepower? And guns are maybe a little strong, if you start to have many per side (3-5 batteries)?

So Eric- you got any house rules? anything you tweak? OR do you find the artillery and infantry reload cards prevent too much damage being done en masse?

[Captain Blicero]

Mr. Parson,
I play the game as is. I would add that 5 battery’s is probably a little much unless you are fielding a Corps. The "Grand battery" in the rules (three Arty stands operating together) I think represents about the max effective concentration of artillery in the period. My army now consists of 5 "battalions" of infantry, 1 "squadron" of Hussars, 1 of Dragoons, and 1 battery of Horse Artillery. I have just finished painting two more battery's of artillery and I can't justify deploying them until I have at least two more battalions of infantry. I think the game plays better if your Army is at least 50% Infantry. As that is probably the minimum ratio for any Napoleonic army I am fine with it.

Check out the FoB yahoo group for more insight. I have (unfortunately) only played 7 or 8 games.

I really enjoyed your battle report, it read like history! The narrative potential of Piquet games keeps my interest.

Regards,
Eric